The leader of Turkey's main opposition Republican People's Party resigned this week amid growing tensions over the government's constitutional reform plans, reports Gareth Jenkins Deniz Baykal, leader of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), resigned on Monday following the publication of a video clip apparently showing him in a compromising situation with a female deputy from his party. In his resignation speech, Baykal bluntly accused the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of being behind the publication of the clip, which he described as a politically motivated conspiracy designed to discredit the CHP in the run-up to a referendum on a controversial package of changes to the Turkish constitution. Ever since the moderate Islamist AKP first announced the constitutional package in late March, the issue has dominated the Turkish political agenda. The AKP has described the proposed reforms as an integral part of the country's democratisation process after decades of military tutelage and a prerequisite for Turkey's ambitions to join the EU. The AKP's opponents claim that the package is designed to strengthen the government's control over the judiciary, which is now regarded as the last bastion of Turkey's ailing secular establishment. Opposition parties have expressed their support for many of the AKP's 29 proposed changes to the constitution, including easing restrictions on positive gender discrimination, giving civil servants union rights, preventing civilians from being tried in military courts and lifting the ban on the trial of those responsible for the 1980 military coup. However, they have vigorously opposed the AKP's plans to change the way in which members are appointed to Turkey's Constitutional Court and the Supreme Board of Prosecutors and Judges (HSYK). In 2008, the Constitutional Court found the AKP guilty of trying to undermine the principle of secularism enshrined in the Turkish constitution, but narrowly voted to allow the party to remain in operation on payment of a $20 million fine and a warning as to its future conduct. In January this year, the HSYK stripped four pro-AKP prosecutors of their powers after they charged a secular prosecutor, who claimed to have uncovered evidence of AKP supporters fixing state contracts, with membership of a terrorist organisation. Under the constitutional changes proposed by the AKP, both the Constitutional Court and the HSYK would be increased in size and the main responsibility for selecting new members would be transferred to the Turkish president, currently Abdullah Gul, a former AKP minister. In the early hours of Friday last week, after more than two weeks of often acrimonious debate, the Turkish parliament finally passed the reform package. But it received the support of only 336 of the 550 deputies, well short of the 367 required by law for it to be enacted. The package has now been forwarded to president Gul, who has 15 days to decide whether or not to put the proposed amendments to a referendum, probably in late July. As soon as the reform package was passed, the CHP announced that it would apply to the Constitutional Court for it to be annulled on the grounds that it violated the principle of the separation of powers. Both the CHP and the second largest opposition party, the ultranationalist Nationalist Action Party (MHP), have vowed to campaign against the package if it goes to a referendum. Within hours of the package being forwarded to Gul, news broke that Turkish- language websites were carrying a video clip apparently showing Baykal and Nesrin Baytok, a married mother of two who served as Baykal's secretary before entering parliament in July 2007, getting dressed in a hotel room. The Turkish authorities moved quickly to forbid Turkish-based news outlets from broadcasting the clip, but it has rapidly spread across the Internet. Sources close to Baykal have suggested that the clip contains footage secretly shot at a number of different times and then pasted together, but the damage had been done. In what is still a deeply conservative society, Baykal immediately faced a barrage of calls to step down as CHP leader. The video was clearly shot without the knowledge of the people appearing in it. But there is currently no evidence as to who was responsible or why they chose last Friday as the day to go public. However, there is a strong belief within the CHP that the video was released to try to discredit the party at the beginning of what is likely to be a bitterly fought campaign in the run-up to the referendum on the constitutional amendments. Opinion polls suggest that many Turks are still undecided about whether or not to approve the package. Ironically, AKP officials have long regarded Baykal as one of their main electoral assets. "Believe me. Each morning when we wake up we pray to God that he will give Deniz Baykal health and a long life and that Baykal will continue to do politics in the same way as he has been doing up to now," commented one AKP minister before parliament began debating the proposed constitutional amendments. Argumentative and uninspiring, Baykal remains personally unpopular even amongst CHP supporters. There is a general consensus that were Baykal to be replaced as leader by someone with a modicum of charisma and political acumen, the CHP would become not weaker but a much more formidable opponent for the AKP.
